Wednesday, 28 August 2013

girl. found.

My feelings about photography are changing so much. Images that I dismissed months ago now feel worthwhile and projects I really believed in last week seem trivial this morning. Instead of just working instinctively and intuitively, I find myself worrying about what my production costs will be or what the 'gallery appeal' would be. Worse still, I find myself comparing my work to others. I also worry about repeating myself.
'girl. found.' is from a distinctly uncommercial project I started earlier this summer and later abandoned. Small images in glass mounts. Just as I was getting away from 'mediated' work, I found a collection of slides and worked them into a sort of abstract narrative. Despite the lack of commercial appeal -- or perhaps, because of it -- I am very drawn to this series, particularly this picture. I feel I understand the anonymous girl, the photographer, even the scent of that house, that year, that summer. The tangle of stories connecting them all feels so vivid, so familiar. It is a 'bad' photograph in many ways but, to me, it has a vague and faded beauty, a poignancy and even a physical 'surface' of deterioration that I find very powerful.